If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Rumour has it that the scale in Johny's gym was broken. I seriously hope that's all it was and he didn't actually have too bad of a cut. I'm a big Johny fan and I'd hate to see him go through anything that detrimental to his health.

I don't think anything is wrong with him... yes he does look drained, but that's what happens with most weight cuts, you are drained of most of the water your body holds. I think there must have been something wrong with his scale. During the interview his speech wasn't slurred and he seemed all there. Mike Dolce was with him so I don't think malnutrition or a steep cut had anything to do with it. Dolce seems to have mastered diet and weight cutting. I think the shaking had more to do with adrenaline running through his body. I know with some tournaments I had to cut weight and I would be pretty jacked up and shaking a bit.

"It was just shocking," UFC President Dana White said moments after Hendricks successfully made weight on his second attempt. "Because Johny Hendricks always makes weight, and he's with (Mike) Dolce. Dolce's guys always make weight. The only thing that makes sense is that their scale was off that they were weighing in on at the hotel."

Hendricks managed to drop the extra 1.5 pounds within his allotted two hours due to some light calisthenics, according to Dolce, then successfully hit 170 pounds on the nose during his second attempt.

Nonetheless, UFC officials had already prepared a back-up plan in case Hendricks failed to make weight a second time.

"If Lawler would've won, he would've been champion," White explained. "If Hendricks won, the title still would've been vacant. Obviously not the best scenario to be going into tomorrow, but it is what it is. And I had a good feeling. Those guys, like I said, they're both very professional, and I thought they'd get it done."

Lawler avoided much of the spectacle, hitting his mark at a chiseled 170 pounds on his first attempt.

Though despite a rough day, Hendricks appeared in high spirits once the situation resolved itself, roaring to his elated crowd of supporters and then sprinting out of the building, while White and the gathered UFC officials breathed a heavy sigh of relief -- one disaster averted, at the least.

"This kid's been competing like this for years as a wrestler," White said. "I'm sure he's had to cut weight (in a pressure situation) before, and go back in the room and make it

"The question is, at this point now, does he gas out? I don't know. We'll see tomorrow."

“We had gone to a local gym to do some weight cutting in the hot tub during fight week,” Dolce told MMAjunkie not long after Hendricks hit 170 pounds to certify Saturday’s UFC 171 main event opposite Robbie Lawler in a bout for the vacant welterweight belt. “It was actually last night.

“Unfortunately, while we were in the hot tub, and the scale was unattended, attendees of the gym were hopping on and off of it. We think the scale might have been damaged because the weight started reading inconsistently.”

Dolce said Hendricks was 174 pounds on that Thursday night at the local gym. He said the scale, a Tanita brand device which the fighter “travels the world with in a very secure lockbox,” was working fine earlier today when Hendricks checked his weight.

But as the day progressed, he said, its readings grew more inconsistent.

“At one point, he was 171.8 (pounds) before he went into the bathtub, and we did a 20-minute in the bathtub, where we’ll lose [sixth-tenths of a pound] to a pound in that time,” Dolce said. “I’m sitting with him, and he’s sweating profusely. We go back and we step on, and it says he gained [two-tenths of an ounce] in that session. That was when he said, ‘F–k. This scale is off.’ That was probably going to be our last one or two sessions of the day.”

To complicate matters, Dolce said, the entire weight-cutting process was delayed so Hendricks could attend a 2 p.m. “medical meeting” that changed their planned schedule.

And when they went to check weight on a UFC’s scale at the fighter hotel that is identically calibrated to the one used at official weigh-ins, Dolce said the promotion had packed it up.

“So we knew Johny was going to be close,” said Dolce, who’s worked with Hendricks as a consultant for his past six UFC fights. “I felt that he would have and could have been on. In looking at the scale, it was 170.5. The commissioner said 171.5. I don’t know how correct that was; maybe my angle was bad or theirs was. But there’s no doubt that Johny was going to make weight.”

Hendricks did make weight, losing one-and-a-half pounds from the initial 171.5 mark announced by the commission, which triggered a two-hour timeline for the fighter to make weight.

Had he not been 170 pounds, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which is overseeing Saturday’s pay-per-view event, mandated that Lawler (22-9 MMA, 7-3 UFC) would be eligible to win the vacant UFC welterweight belt while Hendricks (15-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) would be considered a non-title combatant.

Hendricks’ team was ecstatic when the commission announced he was 170 pounds, and Hendricks, who noticeably shook during his initial try, looked relieved.

In the two hours preceding the weigh-ins, Dolce said Hendricks didn’t hit the nearest sauna, but merely went out to the parking lot at the weigh-in venue and did calisthenics for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating between two minutes of activity and two minutes of rest.

“He was able to break a sweat pretty quickly, and we knew he would lose that weight,” Dolce said. “It was easy. If he had to make 165 (pounds), he would have made 165. It was just about making the contracted weight and not going into deficit by overcutting because of anxiety.

“He was shaking because he was at very low levels of body fat, (with) very low levels of water running through his system, and it was freezing cold in the venue. That’s why. You’ve got to think, a man standing naked in front of 3,000 people, there’s nerves, there’s anxiety, and he just got done cutting weight. He had the lowest amount of body fat that he had in a year.

“You get a little chilly sometimes.”

The natural question now is whether the weight scare will have an effect on Hendricks, who recently told MMAjunkie that he walks around at 220 pounds and would welcome a future move to the middleweight division.

Dolce, who’s naturally confident his client will rebound, said Hendricks rehydrated after weigh-ins with a mixture of sea salt, honey, lemon juice and water. When he spoke to MMAjunkie, he was on his way to drop off a bowl of gluten-free pasta with vegetables.

“We’ll just keep him going through the night,” Dolce said. “Just like it’s a hard sparring day. That’s the way we treat this.”

Classless is right, hype wise it was great. Nick can sell a fight with Lawler due to beating and embarrassing him previously in the UFC. Hendricks now has a reason to dislike him, mention him in and interview and 'bam' the hype train is started. Either way the fight plays out tomorrow night, you know we will be hearing from Nick Diaz, like, you know what Im saying.